My Heritage Website

[Smee]

Recently started to use this website

www.myheritage.com

You can download a Family Tree Builder and then publish it online to your own website, you can make your tree private and invite people to use it.

I also found that you can do for free
Charts, Reports and Books

There is also a good search engine for those on broadband.......

So far it looks real good, so thought i might mention it to everyone.

Smee:biggrin:

 

[admin]

Hi Smee,

Thanks for the link, we are aware of this website and have watched it develop.

Our only concern (as with some other similar sites) is that once you upload all your details and research on your family, that it could well be used else where.

Another issue on many sites like this, is that once you join, they ask you to input details and contact details (including email addresses) of your relatives, and then an email is sent to them, requiring them to join persistently. Many sites just want Members to sell on to the highest bidders, together with your information.

As we have said previously be careful of who you trust with your valuable and confidential information, particularly on the net. We have seen many times, personal family history information, being sold/shown on other websites without any recourse from the actual owner to get it removed. Personally I have been in this position, with my family details being used on other websites (affiliated) to the main one. Where else this information goes is also a worry.

We are not saying that this specific company would do this, but please be careful and check.....

That's why we always recommend hosting your own site, the costs are so small now!
You can buy your own domain from £3-24 per year, get hosting from £4-00 per month and use some good "Open Source" scripts to publish your own tree. Cheap as chips See here!
AND YOU control who has access and the data is always YOURS.

Regards,
Dave

 

[Smee]

Hi Dave

Thanks for that timely reminder of safety issues regarding what i imput to my tree. As you siad i wouldn't know if this site on sells, and i wouldn't know how to find out.

For the next while i will not publish to the website, though i will still use the family builder on my computer. That at least should be safe, unless my computer isn't.

Yes you can put in email addresses for other family members, though i would never do this, as it is a permission thing with me, bit like not giving out phone numbers ........

Lets hope that this site is worth it, i will let you know as i would not like to have my family info sold on. With saying that part of my family is already in family history books and on the web itself.

Thanks again for that timely reminder

Smee (Claire)

 

[myheritage]

Hi Claire, hi admin,

it's a good thing to be careful what company to trust, after all it is personal data.

MyHeritage does take privacy seriously. We give you, our users, the full control over the privacy of your data: whether you want stuff to be public so other genealogist can find your work or keep everything private so you don't have to fear people could misuse any of your data.
In can be found in the settings part of the site
http://www.myheritage.com/FP/administration-privacy.php

We definitely never sell your data to anybody. MyHeritage has a very strict privacy policy that you can view here: http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/popup.php?p=privacy_policy
For example: Not even our employees see the private data that you upload.

For more information you can visit our blog: http://www.myheritage.com/blogs/companyblog/

Feel free to get in touch, if you have any other questions.

Best
Mario and the MyHeritage Team

 

[admin]

I'm sure MyHeritage is not like that and are a responsible company.

But there are many unscrupulous websites out there
So we really need to be careful and thoroughly check sites out first.

Regards,
Dave

 

[admin]

Thanks for the quick response Mario. Got that post in before my response

We appreciate your comments and wish you and the MY Heritage team all the best.

Pop in and see us now and again Mario,

Regards,
Dave

 

[PhillyBill59]

Hello Everyone;

I want to report to everyone here that you must be careful with MyHeritage.

The website seemed to work well too. We had just started the tree in early summer, and since it was growing rapidly, I upgraded from the free portion to the gold 4-year membership in late September. About 3 weeks ago, we started having a problem. I finally wrote to them this Monday, as did my sister. And not one reply.

In fact I've written to every department that I could, and not one response.

Then I asked for a refund...and have now launched a payment dispute via my credit card. And so far, they haven't gotten any response.

The problem is that the website suddenly blocked most of the tree. It will only allow you to see 74 of 3555 people in the family tree tab. If you go to the subtab "people," they are all there. So it reads the GEDCOM fine.

I'm totally disappointed to report that MyHeritage is running on Autopilot.

I see that Mario from MyHeritage made a post here in October. Maybe he will answer this. It would be a first for us...we've written no less than 5 inquires, and to various areas of MyHeritage., i.e., report a bug, ask a question, and so forth.

There is no postal address...and no phone number. The credit card statement only show the Paypal portal that is used to transfer the card payments.

Be aware...they take your money...and then good luck.

At this point, I'm no longer interested in them fixing the problem. Who wants to deal with a company that can't be found, and is totally unresponsive to an issue or for that matter...a simple question or query. I want a refund. I've posted here to share this problem in hopes that it doesn't happen to anyone else.


Below is the link to my family tree page on MyHeritage. Have a look...it's frozen at 74 people out of 3555, and you can't go beyond that in either part of the page.

Best to All...Bill


Here is the link - have a look.

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/family-tree.php?s=32654391

 

[myheritage]

Hi Bill,

thanks for your post. I am really sorry that you haven't had the support experience that you can expect from us. Normally all enquiries are answered within 48 hours, with priority for paying members. With 27 mio users and several hundred requests daily, it is a challenge to give prompt replies to everybody. We actually have a team of 5 people working only on support request, so we do take customer support seriously.

I will personally find out what happened in your case and will get back to you by email. I have sent and email to our head of support and she will help to find out why your tree is frozen.

Finally, there is no problem with refunding you. As our apology we can still keep you and your family on the gold plan.

Feel free to email me with any other questions: mario (at) myheritage (dot) com

Best Mario

 

[myheritage]

Hi Bill,

thanks for your post. I am really sorry that you haven't had the support experience that you can expect from us. Normally all enquiries are answered within 48 hours, with priority for paying members. With 27 mio users and several hundred requests daily, it is a challenge to give prompt replies to everybody. We actually have a team of 5 people working only on support request, so we do take customer support seriously.

I just talked to our head of support and she has received your request last Thursday, the 20th. As Friday and Saturday are week end in Israel, there were only two working days in between. So a detailed answer for you is on the way ;-)

Regarding the fact that your tree only shows 74 people: It isn't a bug, but a method to make your tree easier to view, which is called "pruning". Most of the genealogy websites use it and it means that the families of "in-laws" are hidden in order to give a better view of one branch of the tree.
On MyHeritage we show an icon with a leaf attached to those profiles where the tree is pruned and you will see the other branches if you click on it.

But anyway, there is no problem with refunding you. As our apology we can still keep you and your family on the gold plan.

Feel free to email me with any other questions or comments to mario (at) myheritage (dot) com

Best Mario

 

[PhillyBill59]

AN UPDATE TO MY PROBLEM WITH MYHERITAGE.COM

I said I would update this board regarding the problems we were having with MyHeritage.com, and I want to do so fairly.

First - They aren't ripoffs, and do seem to be a genuine business as well as avid genealogists. They are going to refund my purchase price of a 4-year membership, and Gilad (the founder) offered to let me continue to use the site for free. Also...by the end of yesterday, I had another member by the name of Jaiel writing me to offer personal assistance with our problems.

I would have done this, and not asked for a refund if it wasn't for the deafening silence when asking for help all last week, and I will also add that I asked for a refund on Thursday, an I didn't get an answer to that until American Express started the dispute. There is no excuse whatsoever for a lack of response to all of our queries, both mine and my sister's. It shouldn't take a full week, and have a request for a chargeback to wake up the MyHeritage team.

Now...the software is free, and works very well, and is user friendly. The website is the issue. When you reach a certain number of tree entries, it will overwrite unless you pay for storage (and this is where we bought the 4-year deal which seemed to be a great bargain for a web presence). As it turns out, it's only a little better than rootsweb, which is free.

It still works very well, until you reach another number. At that point, it's not so user friendly, and while you the researcher might be able to easily navigate...forget it for your family and visitors. Gilad said they are working on changing the front-page viewing features as they had other users raise issue (see...it wasn't just me)!!!

Over the weekend another separate problem arose. I have about 60 photos attached, Castles, renditions of Kings & Queens of England, etc. Anyhow, my sister reported that they were no longer viewable. I checked it, and I could see them, but only about half. By Sunday morning...they were completely gone. (I'm not an expert, but is smells of storage issues). Both Jaiel and Gilad saw it, and had no explanation other than for me to reload them.

My advice is this - until they work everything out, and then clearly explain how the site will or won't perform at different levels, I'd stay away from paying for anything. I think that the problem of unacceptable customer support has just been addressed, and they will be careful not to ignore anyone in the future, so I think that buck might have stopped with me.

I hope this helps all of you with regards to any web service offering storage. You hate to be one who asks a million questions, but, if the site is not clearly stating things, then those questions probably need to be asked, especially before parting with your money.

Thanks to the Administrator for allowing these posts.

All the Best to the Board...and Happy Thanksgiving from the United States.

Bill Hartzell
Rydal, PA USA

 

[PhillyBill59]

Mario;

Thanks for the replies. They were quicker than our direct queries...all 6 of them. I do appreacite the refund...it's all I asked for in lieu of the problems incurred, and lack of communications.

I'm aware of the Israeli weekend, and I'm okay with 48 hours, but not 5 business days. My credit card advised me after 3 days of non response to file a dispute...instead, I waited another 24 hours, and sent two more queries.

I'm sure you have millions of users both free and paid, so maybe you need more people working for you, and maybe a few disclaimers on the website.
I don't know about running a business...I'm just a consumer that had nowhere to go with anything but back to my credit card and hope. It is laughable how many responses I got after they got involved.

As for the problem...everyone keeps assuming we don't know how to use the program or site. Maybe that's why nobody answered us. We do know how, and there was a problem...and another one popped up with the photos. Nobody has an answer for that one. I'll work with anyone and hang in there...as long as there is active communication.

I gave a fair assessment in my update, and I think you will have a great service and company...but things were wrong here and needed to be fixed.
Hopefully, this situation will help to improve your service for others, but not for me.

Thanks Again...and Best Regards...Bill


P.S. - Thanks to the Administrator for allowing people to judge this situation and service. A lot of people are using the free version, and will potentially upgrade. People need to know that it preforms differently at various levels...and how it will be viewed and used by your families, many of whom are not web savvy.

 

[admin]

Hi Bill & Mario,

Many thanks for the posts and I must say that it is great to see the issue resolved with MyHeritage.

Please let us know how you get on Bill. Thanks again Mario.

Regards,
Dave